What is the Perfume Project?

This blog is a constantly evolving forum for thoughts on perfume, perfume-making, plants (especially orchids and flora of the Pacific Northwest) and life in general. It started out chronicling the adventures of Olympic Orchids Perfumes, established in July 2010, and has expanded in other directions. A big part of the blog is thinking about the ongoing process of learning and experimentation that leads to new perfumes, the exploration of perfumery materials, the theory and practice of perfume making, the challenges of marketing perfumes and other fragrance products, and random observations on philosophy and society. Spam comments will be marked as such and deleted; any comments that go beyond the boundaries of civil discourse will also be deleted. I am grateful to all of you, the readers, who contribute to the blog by commenting and making this a truly interactive perfume project.

Monday, March 13, 2017

MARCH MONDAY GIVEAWAY #1

Whenever I start feeling like I’m living in a hoarder house, I go into a frenzy of getting rid of stuff I don’t need. My closets are in that condition, but so are my cosmetic and perfume storage areas. Plus, it’s been raining continuously for more than the proverbial 40 days and 40 nights, and I’m really tired of it. So the giveaways continue.

This Monday’s prize is the last of three small fragrances I had from an artisan brand that shall remain nameless. It’s one of those brands that keeps releasing way too much new stuff as old stuff continually disappears, making this prize, if nothing else, a collector’s item.

Personally, as a consumer, if I see a perfume brand’s website with a staggering number of offerings, I tend to go look at a different brand rather than try to sift through the entire list to see if there’s anything interesting. This is especially true if it’s a very new company and/or if a lot of the items are listed as “out of stock”.

An excessive “out of stock” collection is also a waving red flag to me when I see it on big online vendors’ websites because there it seems like a bait-and-switch tactic. I think the company hopes that a customer will search for a hard-to-find perfume and be led to their website, which appears to be the only source for it, at a very good price. Once there, the perfume in question is always listed as “out of stock”. I assume the company hopes that the customer will look at their in-stock items that can be found anywhere, and order something. No thanks.


I know I’m guilty of having over two dozen Olympic Orchids perfumes in production, so I’d be interested to know what you, as a consumer, think is too large a number of perfumes for a single brand to offer. Leave a comment and be entered in the worldwide drawing for a small bottle of a perfume that seems to be discontinued, along with other assorted goodies.

[House-cleaning and flood graphics from Wikimedia; Out-of stock perfume image adapted from a vendor's website]

10 comments:

  1. Oh, coming to you from a hoarder house! Have started spring cleaning with eight inches of snow on the ground. Too much stuff, but it seems to like it here.

    I don't know that I can give an actual number as to what are too many perfumes for one brand to offer. I do know if I have to scroll through the Fragrantica list and I'm only on the Ks by the end of the scroll, that is too many for me. Maybe it isn't the total number from a house, but the number of fragrances that are launched at one time that overwhelms me.

    However, Olympic Orchids could never offer too many fragrances in my opinion.

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  2. The endless supply of flankers gets a serious eye-roll from me. It's a great way to get people who love a particular fragrance to continue buying, but the 20th iteration in the "Chloe" family usually bears little resemblance to the original. I suppose it's not that different from countless movie sequels.

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  3. As someone who has many bottles of fragrance, some would say to many, who am I to judge! But it does get crazy when a fragrance house keeps releasing basically the same variation of a fragrance with one note difference! I think they believe consumers will just buy anything!

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  4. Never too many in my book! mandiecandie18@gmail.com

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  5. Taffy, Triniti, Nelle25, Abbasprincess, My old computer died and I had to replace it, so have been slow to get back online. Thank you all for your comments! You are all entered in the drawing.

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  6. I wouldn't consider two dozen to be too many offerings- especially if they are all in stock. When one gets up to the amount of scents that BPAL offers (and so many are discontinued), it becomes impossible for my brain to sort it all out and they all start to sound alike. I just don't even go to their site because of the confusion.
    darkphoenix54 at gmail.com

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    1. Laurie, BPAL was one of the ones I was thinking of. I am turned off by their website, too. You're entered in the drawing.

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  7. I think an independent perfumer is like an independent artist. The most important is the continuity of his artistic expression. The number of creations is just an indicator of years of work. He/She needs to improve it by seeking a new technique, offering a new stepstone expression or even proposing a modification of an old work. What exasperates me a bit is this trend in luxury brands to launch 6-8 "exclusive" fragrances at the same time. It depersonalizes even more creations often already mediocre.
    I think if I had to add something to your site it would be a stronger visual of the strong personalities of each perfume (I saw magnificent photos illustrating your perfumes on Facebook).

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    1. Frederic, Thanks for your comments. One of these days I will be updating the images on my website. It is on my queue!

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